


Rubbernecking

by Nnm



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Aziraphale and Crowley Live Together (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Never Actually Do Anything, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Other angels and demons, Post-Canon, They love each other, They make some friends (or maybe enemies), aziraphale and crowley are being watched
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 10:23:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20113564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nnm/pseuds/Nnm
Summary: The demon arrives first, setting up shop across the street from Aziraphale's bookstore. The angel arrives second, setting up shop two doors down. They're both there on orders to watch Heaven and Hell's notorious traitors, but they don't expect Aziraphale and Crowley to watch them back.





	Rubbernecking

The demon was the first to move in. She wasn’t hard to notice. She was short and squat, more round than human shaped, yet with limbs that were too long and far too spindly. Even from afar, it was easy to see that her arms were covered in wiry hair, which did not stop at her wrists but went down all the way over her hands, and covered the full length of her fingers, as well. It was hard to tell exactly what she was wearing: it was as if there were too many layers of not-quite-clothing, wrapped around and around, forming an intricate patchwork whole.

She didn’t set up shop directly across from the bookshop. That would have been far too obvious. Instead, she set up shop one door down from directly across from the bookshop. That, it seemed, was precisely the right amount of obvious.

Her shop had a large sign over the door saying, “BUY THINGS.” Aziraphale and Crowley could see it clearly, standing at the kitchen window in the flat above the bookshop. Aziraphale drank tea, Crowley drank coffee, and both of them watched the demon’s storefront. 

“I suppose subtlety is a lost art,” Aziraphale said.

“I don’t think she’s here to be subtle,” Crowley said. 

“‘Buy things,’” Aziraphale read out.

“Amature,” Crowley huffed.

“Do you know her?”

“Hm, no. She looks young. Very young.”

“Not one of the Fallen.”

“An imp. Created as is. Brand new.”

“Should we be offended? They send up an infant to keep tabs on us?”

“I suspect, they didn’t want to send anyone who was around for my failed execution.”

Aziraphale nodded, seeing the sense in that. He drank his tea, and Crowley drank his coffee. 

“Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to go and introduce ourselves,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley frowned, considering. “Let’s wait,” he said. “See what she does.”

So they waited.

The angel moved in later. Xe moved into a second-story flat, above a cafe, not directly across from the bookshop, but one door down from directly across, on the opposite side from the demon. Aziraphale and Crowley first noticed xir, not by sight, but by the sensation that an ostentatious consecration had occurred.

“I _liked_ that cafe,” Crowley whined. They were, again, drinking tea and coffee while looking out the kitchen window. This had become a morning routine for the two of them, ever since ‘BUY THINGS’ had shown up. 

“If you want anything from there, I’ll be happy to pop over and get it for you,” Aziraphale suggested.

“No, uh-uh,” Crowley said, shaking his head. “They may have blessed the water pipes, even. Baristas serving out holy espresso, without even realizing it.”

“I doubt it,” Aziraphale said, but he did not push the issue. “Anyway, whoever they are, they can look forward to a reprimand, I can tell you that, for a needless consecration.”

“Needless?” Crowley raised an eyebrow, and then he grinned. “This angel just moved into the neighborhood with two demons, and _you_. I suspect they’re scared witless.”

“Hm.” Aziraphale thought about that. He drank his tea. “Are you surprised, both sides sending their own operatives?”

Crowley shrugged.

“We really should go introduce ourselves.”

Crowley shrugged.

“Maybe later.” 

***

Between ‘BUY THINGS’ and the consecrated cafe sat an antiques store. The owner, a nice older woman who would sometimes come over to admire Aziraphale’s furniture, had to stop trying to keep inventory. It grew far too confusing.

***

The angel was the first one to come by the bookshop. It only took a few months. 

Xe walked in from outside, letting the door slam behind xir. Xe was tall and slim, and xe did not put enough effort into not glowing. Xe had too-red lips and near-red irises. Xe did not move farther into the room. Xe stood still, on edge, and looked around, almost as if xe did not see Aziraphale standing directly in front of xir.

What Aziraphale noticed upon first seeing xir was how very, very young xe was. Humans would not have perceived xir as such, from xir appearance, but Aziraphale saw past it.

“Hello,” Aziraphale said, and he smiled. 

Xe regarded him now, and xe said nothing.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Aziraphale said, soft and prompting. The angel before him put on a good show, but Aziraphale could imagine what it felt like for xir to be here. Aziraphale could imagine what the last few months had been like, being so young and suddenly stationed on a very crowded and loud Earth. “I’m Aziraphale,” he said.

“I know,” xe said.

“And you are?” Crowley’s voice entered the room before he did, and xe jumped at it. Xir eyes moved away from Aziraphale to watch Crowley saunter from the back room. Xe redoubled the hard, resolute expression on xir face and somehow managed an even straighter posture than before. Aziraphale shot Crowley a look.

“I am here to watch you,” xe said. Xe said it to Aziraphale, and only to Aziraphale.

“What a shock,” Crowley said. Aziraphale shot him another look.

In an attempt at introductions, Aziraphale gestured. “This is Anthony Crowley.”

The young angel stared and said nothing. Crowley stared and said nothing back.

“It would be nice to know your name, young one,” Aziraphale said, recognizing that he was the only one working to keep tensions at a minimum.

The angel opened xir mouth, and then faltered. Xir brow furrowed quickly, and then xir expression returned to its previous firmness. “You do not need to know my name.”

“We’re going to call you something,” Crowley said. “Your choice whether you want to be called by your actual name or by whatever we come up with.”

The angel said nothing.

Aziraphale opened his mouth to try, yet again, to make things more pleasant, but Crowley was already talking. “Shiny, I think,” the demon said. “How’s that sound, Angel? Does our little friend here look like a Shiny to you?”

“You don’t have to tell us your name if you don’t want to.” Aziraphale was _trying_, he really was, and Crowley was not helping at all.

“I came here to tell you that I am here to watch you,” Shiny said, clearly returning to a script xe had prepared before coming in. “Those are my orders. I thought you deserved to know.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale nodded. He smiled. “That is very decent of you.”

Shiny clearly did not know what to make of that. So xe turned and left. The door slammed behind xir, just as it had when xe entered.

As soon as xe was gone, Aziraphale sighed, releasing tension he had not realized he had been carrying. “Can you remember ever being that young?”

Crowley glared at the door. “They came here to gawk. Curiosity finally got the best of them, that’s all.”

“Oh, I know, but you can’t blame them. May as well have been shaking, the poor thing.”

“That ‘poor thing’ is the biggest threat currently facing us.” Crowley’s eyes were still following Shiny through the window, watching as xe crossed the street.

“They’re just doing as they’ve been told.”

“Hm...” Crowley said, growing intrigued by something, in a way that got Aziraphale thinking about how the demon had deemed the other angel ‘shiny.’ Crowley was wearing his sunglasses, but Aziraphale could see his mind was working at something, puzzling at something. “What do you think it would take?” Crowley asked after a moment, a fascinated edge making its way into his voice.

“Take for what?” 

“You know…” Crowley was indecent enough to waggle his eyebrows. “...to do what I do.”

Aziraphale’s jaw dropped, horrified. 

“I think wrath would be the way to go,” Crowley went on, ponderous, oblivious. 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed, “You can’t tempt an angel!”

That got Crowley out of his daydreams. He gave Aziraphale an incredulous look, and then he snorted. 

“I mean…” Aziraphale started, but he wasn’t sure how to finish. His fingers, as if with their own mind, began fiddling with his coat buttons.

“You mean…” That incredulous look on the demon’s face shifted, softened, and then turned into a very wide grin. “What you mean is, you forbid it.”

Aziraphale fidgeted some more, but there was no denying the demon was right. “I suppose, yes, that is what I mean.”

“Only one angel I’m allowed to tempt,” Crowley said, that satisfied grin going nowhere.

Aziraphale knew he was being teased now, and he decided that was acceptable. “Yes, precisely.” 

“You have my word, then,” Crowley said with mock solemnity, which only partially covered up the very real solemnity below it. He leaned in towards his angel, and his angel reciprocated. “Unless we’re in danger. All bets are off, if you’re in danger.”

Aziraphale noticed the shift in wording, from _we_ to _you_, and he wondered if Crowley had as well. He suspected not.

***

Their morning routine grew more firmly entrenched. Aziraphale could sense when Crowley was about to awaken. He took that as his clue to start the coffee and prepare his cup of tea. Crowley would saunter into the kitchen, bleary eyed and groggy, and Aziraphale would hand him a mug. The two would stand, side by side, and look out at ‘Buy Things’ and Shiny’s.

“How long do you think it will take?” Crowley asked, one day.

“For what?”

Crowley gestured out to the other side of the street. “For them to make their own little arrangement.”

Aziraphale scoffed. “I can’t imagine.”

“No, think about it,” Crowley said. “It didn’t take us too terribly long to form the Arrangement, all things considered. And we were just working _near_ each other, that’s all. Those two, though? They’ve been given the exact same assignment, and it’s a really boring one, at that. You and I aren’t doing anything interesting enough to warrant a single set of eyes, let alone two.”

“I do think ‘Buy Things’ might have more than one set, actually.”

“Could be,” Crowley acknowledged, before returning to his point. “They may be naive, but they’re not stupid.”

Aziraphale had a thought and grew amused. “We could play matchmaker.”

Crowley laughed, once. “You said no tempting!” And Aziraphale acknowledged he had a point.

***

The imp finally made an appearance in the bookshop. She came in, hesitant, closing the door behind her very softly. Aziraphale may not have even noticed her entrance, had it not been for the strong waft of evil that came with her. She looked around the shop with a naked curiosity, and Aziraphale watched her. She had only one set of eyes, and they were like black, bifurcated mirrors.

Aziraphale didn’t say anything, despite a strong urge to be polite. He just waited, until Crowley made his way out from the back room.

“We’ve been wondering when you’d show up,” Crowley said as way of greeting. Aziraphale noticed that his tone was much more casual than it had been with Shiny.

The imp shifted to regard him, that naked curiosity still obvious. “So you’re the traitor,” she said, but she wasn’t mean about it.

“Twice-traitor, actually,” Crowley corrected, with a fake smile. “Crowley. And you are?”

The demon needed a moment to think. Then she said, “Muck.”

Aziraphale couldn’t help it: “Your name is _Muck_?”

“Nice to meet you, Muck,” Crowley said, pointedly, while also shooting a glare at Aziraphale. “This is Aziraphale.”

Muck grunted an acknowledgment, more polite than Aziraphale had anticipated.

“So, how’s business treating you?” Crowley asked, a vision of casual chit-chat.

Muck grunted again. “Slow.”

Crowley tsked. “That’s the off-season for you.”

“Off-season?” Muck asked.

“Yes, the off-season,” Crowley said, with a half-grin and one eyebrow raising. “Don’t you know? _ Buying. things._ is seasonal.”

Muck appeared to understand she was being mocked. She didn’t respond.

“Well,” Aziraphale said, deciding it was time to insert himself into the conversation. “Is there anything you need?”

“No, no,” Muck said, raising her hands up to acknowledge she got the hint. She started moving back towards the door. “Just wanted to see what all the hubbub was about.”

“Hubbub,” Crowley repeated.

Muck grunted, both an affirmative and a farewell. Then she left.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Crowley said, once she was gone. 

“Hm,” Aziraphale agreed.

“They’re both terrible conversationalists,” Crowley said.

“Completely clueless,” Aziraphale agreed.

***

There were changes, over time. Two changes, in particular, stood out to Aziraphale and Crowley as noteworthy. First, Shiny’s building stopped being consecrated. Just like that: one day, it was consecrated; the next morning, they both noticed it wasn’t.

“Well, you have your cafe back,” Aziraphale said.

“I’m not stepping foot in that building,” Crowley muttered.

Second, the sign on Muck’s shop changed. Where it had previously said ‘BUY THINGS,’ it now read ‘B.U.G.Z.’ 

“What in the world!” Aziraphale exclaimed, when he saw it.

“Ha!” Crowley said, when he did.

“But what does it stand for?” Aziraphale asked, feeling irritated.

“I don’t think it stands for anything,” Crowley said. 

“That’s awful!”

“Exactly!” Crowley’s eyes twinkled like he was impressed. “Quick study, that one.”

“Oh, people might actually go in that store now, and who knows what Muck will do to them once they do.” Aziraphale realized that the irritation he felt was a sense of oncoming inconvenience. “I can’t believe it, I’m actually going to have to do some thwarting. I haven’t thwarted anyone other than you in so long, I’m completely out of practice.”

He had begun absent-mindedly stretching out his fingers, as if warming up, when Crowley placed his hand on the angel’s shoulder and smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Leave it to me.”

“Are you sure?” Aziraphale asked, and he knew the relief was thick in his voice.

“Not a problem,” Crowley reassured. “Not at all.”

It was easy enough. Every morning, from then on, Crowley simply went and made sure there was a thick layer of raspberry jam on Muck’s door handle. No one went in, and Muck either didn’t care or didn’t notice.

***

One morning, as they stood side by side in front of the kitchen window, Aziraphale was distracted by a new blend of tea. This meant he was taken completely by surprise when something caught Crowley’s attention so forcefully that the demon took a sharp inhale of breath and reached out an arm, as if to steady himself with the angel’s side.

“Look!” Crowley hissed.

Aziraphale looked, and he saw. Muck had just exited Shiny’s building. She didn’t come out from the cafe, but instead the doorway that led up to the flats above. And it was very early in the morning, far earlier than anyone would anticipate for a housecall. She was straightening out the outermost layers of her clothing as she walked.

“Ha!” Crowley shouted, truly delighted.

“Well, I’ll be!” Aziraphale said. He was too surprised to join Crowley in his amusement, but he couldn’t deny a feeling of vicarious satisfaction. 

“I told you it would happen, just didn’t think it would be anywhere near _this_ soon.”

“You did say, Muck’s a quick study.”

“Yes, but Shiny?”

“There must be more to that angel than we know.”

They continued watching, as Muck walked away. She didn’t go to her shop. They made guesses where she could be going, but they had no real idea.

Crowley was still in a good mood, but Aziraphale felt more somber. “They are far too cavalier,” he said.

“They live in a different world than we did.”

Aziraphale shook his head. “Even still, this was obvious. Dangerously obvious.” It wasn’t that Aziraphale really liked Shiny or Muck. In fact, they had interacted with the two young beings so little, he hardly could say he even knew them. But he still found himself feeling a sense of responsibility for them, and he knew Crowley felt the same. Both of them, after all, had experience in childcare. “We should warn them.”

“We should do no such thing,” Crowley said. “Let them live their own lives, Angel.”

Aziraphale frowned, and he drank his tea.

***

Shiny would sometimes follow them, when they went out. Muck never did. 

Aziraphale took to bringing extra bread, when he and Crowley went to feed the ducks. He would leave a little bag of it, a ways behind their normal stopping point. Shiny wouldn’t touch it, not while Aziraphale and Crowley were near. However, if Aziraphale was careful not to glance too noticeably, he would catch sight of Shiny taking the bag and heading over to the ducks, while he and his demon walked away.

It was a shame, he thought, that Muck got no similar opportunity.

***

Shiny came into the bookshop again. Xe did a better job, keeping the door from slamming this time. Xe also was a lot better, by this point, at looking human. The glow was under control, and the coloring in xir face almost looked normal.

“Hello, there,” Aziraphale said. 

Shiny regarded him very carefully. “I am here to browse through your goods,” xe declared.

“Well…” This was strange, and perhaps a bit dangerous, but Aziraphale didn’t feel like he could refuse. “Alright. Please be careful with what you touch.”

Xe nodded, apparently satisfied with this. Xe moved towards the shelves, winding back to a less visible part of the store, in a purposeful way that was completely unfit for browsing.

Crowley came out from the back room, using his eyebrows to ask a wordless question. Aziraphale shrugged that wordless question right back at him.

The answer arrived just minutes later. The door opened, and in walked Muck. Muck very purposefully glanced around every part of the shop except the one corner where Shiny was browsing.

“Hello, Muck,” Crowley said, dry. “How nice of you to stop by.”

Muck looked at the two of them. She, like Shiny, was doing a better job of looking human these days. The distribution of mass between her limbs and her torso was a bit more appropriate, and she had managed to make her eyes look almost normal. Her arms and hands were still too hairy, but that was likely something she could not control.

“Listen…” Muck said, with the mixture of hesitancy and force of someone who has practiced a speech and then forgot it on the spot. “I have a question.”

Aziraphale and Crowley looked to each other. Then Crowley looked back at Muck, and Aziraphale glanced over to where Shiny was hiding. “Go ahead,” Crowley said.

Muck’s brow furrowed. She looked down, and then back up. Her eyes moved between both Crowley and Aziraphale. “We don’t know what we’re supposed to be watching for.”

“_You_,” Aziraphale said, low in warning. He couldn’t help himself. “_You_ don’t know.”

“Right,” Muck said with a confused wince. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be watching for. And they don’t either.”

“And your question is…?” Crowley prompted.

“Do you know?” Muck looked at them, her eyes wide and hopeful. Aziraphale felt an urge to give the little creature a hug for comfort, but he would do no such thing. “What we-- what I’m watching for?”

Crowley looked at Aziraphale, and Aziraphale looked at Crowley. He pursed his lips.

“You tried asking your superiors?” Crowley offered.

Muck grunted. That was apparently a meaningful answer, for Crowley, who sighed. “Shiny,” he called out, “You can stay back there if you want, but it’ll be easier for us to talk if you come out.”

Muck turned to look to where Shiny was hiding. There was a pause, and then xe emerged. “My name is Karael,” xe said, quiet.

“Nice to meet you, Karael,” Crowley said, and there was a kindness in it that warmed Aziraphale.

Everyone waited for someone else to speak.

“We assumed you were to report on all our activities,” Crowley said.

“But neither of you do much of anything,” Karael said, brow furrowed.

“So say so,” Crowley shrugged.

“Tried that,” Muck grunted. “Didn’t go well.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale said.

“We hoped you could help us do better,” Karael spoke a little too fast, and xe looked sheepish, which let Aziraphale realize that all of this had been xir plan to begin with. “With our reports.”

Crowley turned to regard Aziraphale, and Aziraphale regarded him back. Crowley raised an eyebrow, and Aziraphale offered a half-smile. Then Crowley shrugged, and Aziraphale knew they were in agreement.

“I think…” Aziraphale started, not entirely sure how to say what he had to say so the young ones could hear. “What you should watch for--or, rather, what you should report--depends on what you want.”

Neither Muck nor Karael showed any indication of understanding. Crowley, for his part, did.

“What you say in your reports is going to determine what your bosses will do with you,” Crowley said. “You two know that, right?”

Aziraphale nodded along, continued. “We are a threat, aren’t we? That’s why you’re both here. I suspect your Head Offices want to know how significant a threat we are. Too small a threat, and I doubt they will keep you stationed here for too much longer--”

“And if you make us out to be too large a threat,” Crowley cut in, “that would be very bad for all of us. Some of us, more than others.” He emphasized _all_, _some_, and _others_, in a way that made very clear which of the two pairs it would be the worst for.

“It’s all about finding the right balance.” Aziraphale’s tone was softer now, to compensate for Crowley’s threat. “In your reports. To get what you want.”

Muck looked thoughtful. Karael did too, but in a different way. If the young angel were human, Aziraphale would have worried that xe was about to turn physically ill.

“The question you have to answer, then,” Aziraphale continued, his voice soothing and sweet, “is simply, what do you want?”

It was as if the question flipped a switch in Karael’s head. Xir attention snapped up to Aziraphale, xir eyes hard with anger that Aziraphale could tell masked deep fear, and xe bolted, the door slamming behind xir.

Muck stayed a moment longer. She looked confused and so very small. She nodded, and then she too left. Aziraphale and Crowley looked out after her.

“Takes you back, doesn’t it?” Crowley said. He was trying to look blasé, but Aziraphale could see that the conversation had taken a toll on him. He looked the way he often did, when he was too wrapped up in bad memories.

“They had no one else to ask for help. No one but us.” Aziraphale sighed. “Can you imagine? How scared and alone they must be?”

“Yes,” Crowley said, low and far away. “I can.”

Aziraphale could, too, although it hurt to admit it.

***

Crowley was annoyed, but Aziraphale was tickled. “I think it’s sweet,” he said, and he meant it.

They were at dinner. It was a crowded restaurant, and they had miracled themselves a table. Once they had been seated, they both felt a second miracle performed: another table, not too distant but also not too close, becoming available. Karael and Muck were seated at it.

“I like our privacy,” Crowley said. He was glowering.

Aziraphale tutted. “They’re just being careful. They needed an excuse to be out together.”

Crowley didn’t stop glowering.

“Just let them have this.”

Crowley kept on with his glowering.

“I’ll make it up to you later, I promise.” Aziraphale gave the demon a look that was both knowing and beseeching. “Just don’t ruin my dinner for me, dear, please.”

“They’re the ones ruining it, not me,” he grumbled, giving himself the final word. But then he lowered the intensity of his glowering to a tolerable level, and he was a perfect gentleman for the rest of the night.

***

“I was thinking,” Crowley said one morning, between sips of his coffee, “how many angels or demons have been stationed on Earth for this long?”

“What, as long as us?” Aziraphale asked, confused, because they both knew the answer to that.

“No, those two.” Crowley gestured out the kitchen window. “You and me, we’ve been here the longer than everyone. But after us? Who comes in second for longest stay?”

“Hm,” Aziraphale wondered.

“It could be them, at this point.”

They both thought about this, about what to make of it. “Do you think we should invite them over for tea sometime?” Aziraphale asked.

“No,” Crowley scoffed, emphatic. “No! Don’t forget what they are. They are not our friends. They’re nothing but a danger to us.”

“Hm,” Aziraphale wondered.

***

“Oeuf!” Crowley hadn’t meant to say ‘egg’ in French, but that was just the sort of thing that happens after grasping a door handle and pulling back to find a smear of red, sticky jam on one’s hand.

“I really think you should have seen that coming,” Aziraphale said, standing a step behind the demon and holding a boxed cake.

Crowley grumbled some empty cruelties, miracled away the jam, and tried again. The two of them, for the first time, stepped into B.U.G.Z.

Inside, it was very close to being a shop, but it wasn’t thoroughly successful. There was twine, everywhere, far, far too much twine. In one corner was a camping display: a fully-assembled tent on the ground and unfurled sleeping bags hanging from the ceiling. In another corner was a very large pile of clothing hangers. Pricetags were stapled to the walls. In the back of the room was a large couch facing an even larger television, which currently had a lot of bright colors flashing on it. And, in the middle of the room, turning now to face them, was Muck.

“Customers!” She said, and her face broke into a very large smile.

“Something like that,” Crowley said.

“We brought a cake,” Aziraphale said, holding up the box in his hands. “We, uh…” He faltered. This had all been his plan, and he had rather twisted Crowley’s arm into agreeing to it. It had somehow slipped his mind, before he stepped through the door, that he was entering a demonic lair. He had not anticipated just how powerfully it would reek of evil--this space was nothing like Crowley’s flat, not at all. He swallowed hard, and tried again. “We realized we never offered a proper welcome to the neighborhood, when you arrived.” He tried a smile. “Better late than never?”

“Oh!” came from the couch, which made Aziraphale realize there was a figure sitting on it. It was Karael, who stood now. Xe stood up too quickly, causing xir to almost trip. 

“What kind of cake?” Muck asked.

“Err.” Aziraphale’s mind had to work very quickly to both acknowledge Karael’s presence and formulate a response to the question. “Red velvet.” He and Crowley had had a rather vehement disagreement about what sort of cake would be appropriate. This had been a compromise.

“We’ll eat it anyway,” Muck said, and Aziraphale interpreted that as a thank you. The little imp came over and took the box from his hands.

“Didn’t know you’d be here,” Aziraphale called out to Karael, while Crowley turned his attention to the goods littered around the shop. “Do hope we’re not interrupting anything.”

“Video games!” Karael nearly shouted. Xir eyes were very wide, and there was a reckless grin plastered on xir face. There was something coursing through xir bloodstream, Aziraphale could tell, but it was not alcohol. “Have you done them?”

“Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure,” Aziraphale said, working very hard to tamp down his unease.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said, pulling his attention. The demon had picked up some sort of long rod with a doo-dad at the end of it, and he was examining it. Aziraphale went over to him, to look. “You ever seen one of these before?”

“No, I don’t believe I have.” It was clearly some sort of newfangled technology device, and there was no reason why Crowley would actually have to ask whether Aziraphale was familiar with it. He certainly would not have bothered under other circumstances, and Aziraphale could not understand why he was bothering in these circumstances, either.

“This…” Crowley said, with an emphasis Aziraphale could not fully interpret. “Is a selfie stick.” 

“A selfie stick?” The phrase, itself, felt even more unpleasant than the whole of the shop.

“Mm-hmm,” Crowley said, and now he turned his head to give Muck a very, very large grin. Muck responded by giving a little grunt and a nod of her head. Whatever was occurring, Aziraphale decided, he wanted no further part in it.

He turned back to Karael, who was still standing right at the edge of the couch, some sort of device held in xir hands. “Why don’t you introduce me to the videos,” he suggested, already prepared to regret it fully.

The video games were not all as appalling as he had expected. He watched for a while as Karael played a rather lovely little game, focused around collecting flowers and little animals. He even attempted pushing some of the buttons on the controller, at Karael’s behest, although he did not see the appeal. Meanwhile, Muck and Crowley talked shop with one another, which Aziraphale was satisfied to ignore. They all ate some cake, and they all agreed it was neither very good nor very bad. Then Karael and Crowley got serious about playing a particularly awful video game together, while Muck grunted out commentary and Aziraphale developed a headache. Crowley won, but also, he cheated.

When they finally left, the cool evening air was a relief for Aziraphale’s frazzled nerves. He breathed in the refreshing scent of humanity while Crowley pulled a small jar out of nowhere and smeared some more jam on Muck’s door handle.

“That,” Crowley said once he was done and they made their way across the street, “was not at all what I expected.”

“Nor I,” Aziraphale grumbled.

“Oh, come on,” the demon both teased and cajoled, “It wasn’t that bad.”

“I don’t know what to make of those two.”

“Karael’s got spunk.”

“Muck is very earnest for a demon.”

“She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”

“You mean?”

“Bad. A good bad head.”

They entered the bookshop, and it felt good to be home. 

“Listening to you and that little imp talk so much…” Aziraphale shook his head. “It was quite a reminder for me.”

“A reminder of what?” Crowley circled to stand in front of the angel, his eyebrows raised in a look that Aziraphale knew he wanted to appear merely curious but which actually held a fair bit of concern.

“A reminder, my dear, that I will never be through thwarting you.” He gave a saucy look, and he enjoyed watching as the demon’s concern melted into a comfortable grin.

“Never,” the demon promised.

***

There was shouting, out on the street. Crowley was out for the day, and there was shouting.

Aziraphale moved to his front door, to see what was happening. Across the street, there was Muck and Karael. The two of them were at the halfway point between their two homes, standing outside the antique store. They were the ones shouting, shouting at each other. Humans were starting to notice, and this threatened to be a spectacle.

“Get out of the street,” Aziraphale mumbled to himself, watching through the glass. His eyes turned upwards and then back to them. “You fools.”

If the two young ones didn’t even have enough sense to hide themselves from mortal attention, Aziraphale at least could do it for them. He shielded them from prying eyes--at least, prying _ human_ eyes. His ethereal eyes, however, would continue to pry.

Karael was shouting, far more than Muck. Muck, for her part, was mostly still, unearthly calm, except for her head. It shook back and forth, almost as if she didn’t know it was happening. She wasn’t looking at Karael but down, at the sidewalk. Karael was animated enough for both of them. Xe was gesticulating wildly, one finger coming down regularly to xir other hand, the obvious pantomime for a listing of points. Xir face was red, xir voice was cracking from the force of xir shouting, and xe was speaking fast and loud.

Aziraphale couldn’t make out what xe was saying. He could only watch.

Karael’s voice finally trailed off, and xe was left staring at Muck, almost panting from the exertion of the shouting. Muck’s head continued to shake back and forth. She said something, and Aziraphale watched the whole of Karael’s form slump. Muck walked away and did not look back.

Karael stood there, hollow and frozen. Then xe looked up, saw Aziraphale standing in his doorway. He gave a small, awkward wave.

He expected xir to run off, at that, embarrassed or distressed at having been seen. Xe didn’t. Instead, xe marched across the street, opened Aziraphale’s door, and moved right past him into the bookshop.

Xe was breathing hard. Aziraphale looked at xir and saw xe was on the verge of tears. “Oh,” he said, unsure of himself, of xir, of what to do.

“I don’t…” Karael attempted. “I don’t…”

“It’s alright,” Aziraphale tried to fill his voice with a calm solidity, reassurance, to help the young angel stay stable. He could not tell if it was working. “It’s alright. That looked like a very bad tiff, but you’re alright.”

“I don’t know how,” Karael kept going, as if Aziraphale had not said anything at all.

“I know, I understand,” and he really felt like he did.

“How,” Karael repeated.

“I know,” he continued to sooth.

“_How_,” Karael repeated, again, more forceful this time, and Aziraphale realized that those tear-glossed eyes were set on him, would bore into him if they could. He realized what the young angel was doing: xe was asking. Xe was asking a question xe could not ask, a question he could not answer. 

“Oh,” he said, taking a step backwards. “Oh, no.”

Xe looked at him, hard. Xe was too young, too intense, too strongly passionate for xir own good. Xe was like an explosion of flame where Aziraphale felt like gentle candlelight.

“You, and him,” xe said, working away from implication and closer to explicit meaning. “How? How did you--”

“Karael,” he cut xir off. “No. No. You cannot ask that.”

“I can!” xe cried.

“Then I cannot answer.”

“Would he?” xe cried again. “Is he here? Where is he--would he tell me?”

“He would not,” Aziraphale said, certain and resolute, speaking grim truth.

“Why!” xe howled.

Angels do not howl. Or, rather, they should not. They do not scream and pout, either, or at least they should not. Seeing this made something click into place in Aziraphale’s mind, and he remembered himself. He was many things: he was the Guardian of the Eastern Gate, the Giver née Keeper of the Flaming Sword, Protector of Humanity, Unfallen Traitor to Heaven, Tamer of Eden’s Serpent, the Angel who Walked through Hellfire. And he was still, on top of all that, eternally so long as he did not Fall, regardless what Heaven’s leadership may think of the matter, a Principality.

Karael was not. Karael was an angel, simply an angel, the lowest rank within the hierarchy.

He outranked xir. He was xir superior. Xe was howling and crying and begging xir superior to answer a question he should not--he could not--answer.

“It is not one’s place to demand answers, young one,” he said, letting himself fall back into old routines, old habits, the words not comforting but so easily remembered. “We are not made to understand, but to obey.”

Xe stared at him. A tear fell down xir cheek. Aziraphale made himself ignore it.

“You want to know how I survived hellfire, and how my companion survived a bath in holy water. But you know already the answer, the only answer. It must have been the Plan, the Ineffable Plan, and asking for any explanation beyond that would be hubris beyond your station.”

Claptrap. It was claptrap. It was complete and utter claptrap. And he said it anyway. He said it, and he made it sound true, because Aziraphale has always known how to navigate Heavenly nonsense, how to manage double-speak, how to skirt around lies to keep himself safe. To keep Crowley safe.

“I am sorry,” he continued, and he really was, but he tried to keep the sincerity from breaking his voice. “That is the only answer for you.”

Xe was broken. Xe was reprimanded. Xe swayed, and Aziraphale worried that xe would fall. But xe did not. 

“You have to find your own way, little one.” It was a consolation: too little, too soft, too small a crumb of truth after so many hollow words. He wished xe could hear him--could hear what he _meant_ if not what he _said_\--but clearly xe did not.

Xir eyes left Aziraphale, swam about the room. And then xe lunged, pushed past him, and out the door.

Aziraphale watched xir go. He was shaking. He was alone, his breath was hitching, and he was shaking. He crossed the room, picked up his telephone. “Crowley, are you there?” he asked, forgetting to dial but not needing to. “Crowley--oh, Crowley, can you please come home?”

“What is it?” Crowley asked, already there, already hovering protectively, looking around the room for what had upset the angel. “What happened?”

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale sighed, allowing himself to be protected, comforted. He closed his eyes, and he breathed in the reassuring smell of Crowley’s not-quite-evil.

He told the demon what had happened. They discussed it thoroughly, over drinks. Crowley insisted that he had done the right thing, that he had done the only possible thing.

“They’re spies,” Crowley said. “Remember? That’s why they’re here. To spy on us. It could’ve been a ploy to get us to spill our secrets.”

“You didn’t see them.” Aziraphale shook his head. “It was no ploy.”

“They’re not your responsibility.”

“No, but--”

“Don’t forget the stakes. We’re still playing with fire, yeah? We’re never not playing with fire, ever again.”

Aziraphale acknowledged that. He understood, he agreed. He just didn’t feel good about it.

***

Muck and Karael got over their fight. They must have, Aziraphale and Crowley concluded, given the evidence available from the kitchen window. They could sometimes see the tell-tale flashes of light coming from Muck’s storefront windows: Karael’s video games. They would sometimes see Muck leave the cafe with a drink in each hand. The antique store grew slightly less confused.

When they saw Muck, she looked content. When they saw Karael, xe sometimes looked satisfied, sometimes looked distant, always looked a little too wild.

They kept their distance.

***

And then, one morning, it was over. They were gone.

Aziraphale held his cup of tea without drinking it, Crowley drank his coffee. They looked out the kitchen window.

There was no longer the waft of evil from one door down to the left; there was no longer any feeling of holiness emanating from one door down to the right. There was no ‘B.U.G.Z.’ sign. The storefront was empty, like it had been empty for a very long time. Aziraphale sent out his senses to explore Karael’s flat, and it was derelict, dusty, lifeless.

They were alone.

“Huh,” Crowley said.

“Hm,” Aziraphale agreed.

“Do you think…?”

“I don’t know.”

Aziraphale held his cup of tea. Crowley drank his coffee.

“They could have run off together,” Aziraphale offered. 

“Could be.”

“They were both very clever.”

“Karael was a planner. They were good at planning.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

They watched out the window. Their routine would change after this, certainly, as there was no longer anything to be watching for. This would be the last time, Aziraphale was sure of it.

“We could try to find out,” Crowley suggested. “Make some inquiries, see if anyone’s willing to talk to us.”

“No,” Aziraphale said, shaking his head, certain about it. “No, I think… I think I would more prefer to simply assume.”

“Okay.”

“They ran off together.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“They made it. Together. They’re safe and sound, and happy now.”

“Sure.”

“Just like us.”

“Yes.”

It was good to assume. Or to imagine. Or perhaps to pretend. It was good, or at least it was better than any other alternative they had.

Aziraphale and Crowley stood, side by side, looking out their kitchen window. They stood there, together, and they looked out onto the street they had saved, the world they had saved, the joint life they had eked from nothing. Aziraphale reached out into the space between them, and Crowley did the same, and they grasped each others’ hands. They held on to each other, held on tight.

**Author's Note:**

> Aziraphale could not know this, but something strange started happening at Muck's store, after Aziraphale's last conversation with Karael. Muck started receiving inventory she never ordered: box after box of DVDs, countless copies of _Face/Off, Freaky Friday, The Parent Trap_, and even 2002's _The Hot Chick_. When Muck made inquiries with the shipping company, she learned that these were intended for a video rental store that had previously occupied her storefront but had closed in 2003, that they are paid for in full, and that they could not be returned.
> 
> Crowley never tells Aziraphale, because he wouldn't be familiar with any of those movies, anyway.


End file.
